One form of a television camera includes a light-splitting prism for dividing the light into different colored components, such as red, green and blue components, and a separate solid-state charge-coupled (CCD) image pickup device mounted on the prism for receiving each color component. U.S. Pat. No. 4,323,918, entitled "Optical Assembly For Color Television", issued Apr. 6, 1982 to S. L. Bendell describes a camera which includes solid-state imagers in conjunction with a beam-splitting prism. However, a problem found in making such a camera is to mount the solid-state imagers on the prism in a manner that will provide an assembly having structural integrity so that the prism will not break during operation and use of the camera.
As described in the co-pending application for Letters Patent of Z. M. Andrevski, Ser. No. 595,528 filed Mar. 30, 1984, entitled "Television Camera With Solid-State Imagers Mounted To A Prism", now U.S. Pat. No. 4,591,901, issued May 27, 1986 assigned to the same assignee as the present application and which is incorporated herein by reference, there has been developed a light-splitting prism, solid-state detector assembly which has good structural integrity. In general, this assembly includes a pair of substantially identical mounting plates secured to the top and bottom of the prism. The prism has at its edges an inlet port for receiving the light from the image being detected, and three outlet ports, one for each of the color components. The mounting plates have a pair of spaced notches in their edges adjacent each outlet port of the prism. The notches in the top mounting plate are in alignment with the notches in the bottom mounting plate. Each solid-state detector is mounted across a pair of spaced, parallel rods. The solid-state detector and rod subassembly is then mounted between the mounting plates with the ends of the rods fitting into the notches in the mounting plates and the detectors extending across an outlet port of the prism. The rods are secured to the mounting plate with a suitable cement.
In this assembly it is necessary that each of the detectors is exactly positioned over its respective outlet port of the prism so that there is proper registration of the three images detected by the detectors. Thus, if after the three detectors are mounted on the mounting plates it is found that one or more of the detectors is not in proper registration, the detector and rod subassembly must be removed to reassemble the detector. Also, if after the detectors are assembled on the mounting plates one is found to be defective for any reason, it must be removed. Therefore, it is necessary to secure the rods to the mounting plates in a manner which will permit the removal of the rods with ease and without damaging the detector.